9 222322 Where the Book Speaks I THE NEW TESTAMENT A MISSIONARY VOLUME Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah hath spoken.-ISA. I: 2. T HIS book that we call the New Testament is a missionary volume. It is the greatest missionary volume that has ever been written or that ever will be written. Every part of it has missionary significance. The man who would understand it must read it with this thought in mind. The Gospels furnish the missionary with his message. They state the great truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and they furnish the evidence of that proposition. By virtue of His death on the cross He became the author of eternal redemption to as many as should obey Him. By His resurrection from among the dead He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness. Paul told the Corinthians that the gospel he preached to them was this, "That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." All four evangelists record these facts. They give large space to them, because these facts are fundamental in the Christian system; because without the death and burial and resurrection of Christ there could be no gospel for men to preach. The personal ministry of Jesus was confined to Palestine. He said He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Nevertheless His teaching showed that the whole world and all the people that dwell therein were included in His program. His aims and purposes were not parochial or provincial or even national; they were universal. He was the original imperialist. So we hear Him say, “And other sheep have I which are not of this fold: them also must I bring, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd." We hear Him say, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him." We hear Him say, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." Again, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." Once more," And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations; and then shall the end come." It was to a sinful woman of Samaria that He addressed some of the greatest words that ever fell on human ears; it was to that sinful woman that He announced that He was the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. It was while listening to a Roman centurion that He marvelled and said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." At the time of His birth wise men from the east came to Bethlehem and fell down and worshipped Him; and opening their treasures they offered Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Towards the end of His earthly career some Greeks went up to the feast and said to one of His disciples, "Sir, we would see Jesus." When He heard of this request He said, "The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified." The wise men from the east and these Greeks were the first-fruits of that great multitude that John saw before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white I robes, and palms in their hands, a multitude that no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues. Our Lord reminded His own people that there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land, but to none of them was the prophet sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. All through His ministry He was trying to show that God was the Father of the spirits of all flesh; and that His sympathies were as wide as the In His parables and miracles there are clear intimations of the world-wide scope of the religion which He founded. The Roman, the Samaritan, the Canaanite, the publican and the sinful were among His beneficiaries. No soul that came to Him was sent away empty. race. The name given to the twelve men that He appointed that they might be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to cast out demons, indicates that Christianity is essentially a missionary religion. These men were to carry on all that He began to do and to teach. Luke tells us that He named them apostles or missionaries. They were not theologians or ecclesiastics or prelates or philosophers, but messengers. They were to go out as witnesses. They were to declare what they had heard, what they had seen with their eyes, what they beheld, what their hands had handled, concerning the Word of life. These men incarnated the missionary passion; they were what their names signified. "And every day, in the temple and at home, they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus as the Christ." The authorities complained that they had filled Jerusalem with their teaching. A little later it was said of them that they had turned the world upside down. Before they went to their reward they testified that the |